Best Laid Plans (55 page)

First, there were jurisdictional issues. The college was in the county, not the city of Colorado Springs. The campsite where Scott Sheldon had disappeared was in a national park, putting the location under the federal government. The National Park Service rangers were responsible for the initial search and rescue, but they had a joint operation with the county and adjoining cities. Adele Sheldon had told her she filed the missing persons report with the college and with Colorado Springs PD, and Detective Amelia Horn was her contact. Why CSPD? Neither the college nor the campsite was in the city. Who was really in charge? Detective Horn had nothing to add when Max spoke to her, pointing out that CSPD
wasn’t
in charge.

Max pulled out a trifold board she’d created last night and set it up on the credenza. The time line was clear, even though it made no sense.

Last Halloween Eve, nearly six months ago, was a Friday. Scott Sheldon told his roommate that he was going camping with three friends—Tom Keller, Arthur Cowan, and Carlos Ibarra. They planned to be back Sunday morning.

According to the statements by Scott’s three friends, they’d been drinking and joking Friday night. At some point, Scott got angry—no one claimed to know exactly what set him off—and he grabbed his backpack and left. When he didn’t return, they assumed he was sleeping in the truck, which was parked an hour’s hike from the campsite.

The next morning, Scott still hadn’t returned. The weather turned from overcast to rain, and Keller, Cowan, and Ibarra returned to the truck. When they didn’t find Scott, they looked for him in the area, but the rain came down hard and heavy. They left—there was nothing in the notes saying that they went back to the campus on Saturday, but that was implied. It snowed late Saturday night and the boys said they trekked back to the campsite Sunday morning and looked for Scott. They didn’t call the rangers, they didn’t alert campus security,
nothing,
until Sunday afternoon.

That was the part of the story that set off Max’s instincts. Why had it taken them so long to tell anyone that Scott was missing? Why did campus security wait until Monday morning to notify the park service? By that point, the storm was so severe, they could search for only a few hours each day. By the end of the week, the roads to that area of the mountain were impassable.

There was no doubt in her mind that Scott Sheldon had died on that mountain, but the question was how and when. The fact that he was missing for nearly forty-eight hours before the three boys had alerted
anyone
told Max they were lying about something.

She reviewed her notes until eight, when she called Chuck Pence with the park service. He was based in Colorado Springs, near the police station, but Pence was on the search and rescue staff and had led the effort to find Scott. His specialty was working with tracking dogs.

He wasn’t there, and the staff said he was already in the field. Max left a message and reviewed her schedule. She’d wanted to talk to Pence first for more background on the search and what, if anything, they’d found that hadn’t made it in the official files, but that would have to wait. She considered talking to Detective Horn again, but after their phone conversation, Max suspected it would be a waste of time. If she learned anything new, she’d talk to the police. She’d go to the college first and talk to Scott’s roommate, then track down the others.

While she drove the thirty minutes to the Cheyenne College campus, she got two calls, which she sent to voice mail. The first from Ben. She wasn’t going to talk to him about the television show until after this case, and she was already thinking of more ways she could tell him no—since the blunt no she’d already given him didn’t work. The second call came from her editor. Max didn’t have anything good to tell her, and Emma was going to be disappointed.

Max had written four true crime novels, the first about Karen’s disappearance and the subsequent investigation. The latest book was coming out this summer, and Emma wanted another proposal. But Max didn’t have a case that excited her. She read the crime blotters, tracked the news—there were a lot of interesting cases, some even more interesting than Scott Sheldon’s disappearance. But nothing jumped out at her as thrilling enough to invest several months of her life into research and interviews, then another six to nine months verifying facts and writing the book. Writing the last book had nearly gutted Max. She’d investigated claims of elder abuse in a Miami facility and uncovered a ten-year reign of terror by the director she had dubbed the Wicked Nurse of Miami. Not very creative, and her editor had cut all but two references to the nickname from the book, but it was still the way Max thought of the bitch who seemed to take pleasure in making sick, old people suffer.

She didn’t want to go through that again, not yet. She briefly considered the Scott Sheldon case, and maybe there was something here that would warrant a full-length book, but Max didn’t see it yet. She first needed to talk to the people involved—maybe shining a new light on the matter would get them to talk—or slip up, if they were harboring a violent secret.

It was nine when she arrived in the visitors’ parking lot. The campus was small, at least by Max’s standards—three thousand undergraduates, half of whom commuted to the campus, and an even smaller graduate program. A typical liberal arts college, where students predominately majored in the humanities and arts, though there was a new earth science building and a recent influx of students majoring in environmental science and conservation. Not a surprise, considering the campus was in the Rocky Mountains.

The grounds may have been modest, but they spread out and up the mountainside, with tree-lined cement trails winding around the perimeter. A quad, of sorts, was built around a possibly natural waterfall, which filled a small lake. A stream meandered out, and judging from the marks in its banks, it was lower than it had been in the past. Still, the campus seemed like a rather idyllic place. No towering redwoods and pines as in California and much of the Rocky Mountains, but this place still had the fresh clean air and crisp cold Max loved.

She used to go skiing all the time—in far colder weather than this. She still skied when she could, but more and more she spent her hours investigating or planning an investigation. This was the first winter she hadn’t spent time at her cousin’s resort in Vail. Too many cold cases had grabbed her interest, and she’d also been finishing the book about the Wicked Nurse of Miami.

Her work—vocation, really—consumed her, and taking time off to have fun just hadn’t seemed important after the tragedies she immersed herself in. And as her editor, who was probably her closest friend in New York, had told her, Max was a workaholic.

Max had downloaded a campus map, but each path was well marked with signs and arrows directing her. She was looking for Rock Creek dorm, where Scott Sheldon had lived for the two months before his disappearance. His roommate had been Ian Stanhope, an environmental science major from Denver. Scott had been an environmental science major as well—and in fact, Scott and Ian seemed to have lived parallel lives.

Both were strong but not straight-A students; both were at Cheyenne on partial merit scholarships. Both had one younger sibling—Scott, a sister; Ian, a brother—and parents who divorced while the boys were in junior high school. Had they become close friends or bitter enemies? Sometimes, similarities made you hate a person because they highlighted—often unintentionally—your own flaws.

She didn’t have a sense of who they were as people, only who they were on paper. Scott hadn’t been involved with athletics; Ian was on the baseball team for the college, a D-III school. Through social media, it appeared that Ian had many friends, lots of direct and indirect connections to college, his high school, and Denver. Scott’s profile had been taken down, probably by his mother or sister, but his mother told her that he’d been soft-spoken and reserved, with only a few friends growing up.

How few? Had he made friends during his two months at Cheyenne before he disappeared? Was he homesick? Did he like college? Were his grades okay or was he struggling? Was there a girlfriend his mother didn’t know about? Ex-girlfriend? His mother said he didn’t have a history of depression, but a family might miss that, especially if the depressed person tried to keep it from them. Or if the onset was sudden. These were all things she would find out.

She knocked on Ian Stanhope’s door again and considered that he might not be there. Classes, socializing, studying.

A small guy came out of the room next door, backpack over his shoulder. “If you’re looking for Ian, he’s probably at the gym if he doesn’t have class.”

“Can you point me in the right direction?”

“South exit, right, and follow the signs to Cougar Stadium.”

Max followed the directions and less than five minutes later was standing in the lobby of a rather impressive athletics facility for a small college. The gym portion was well equipped with several weight machines, treadmills, and an area for free weights. It was clean and bordered on two sides by windows, which looked out into trees. Half the machines were being used.

She referred to a photo of Ian, then looked around. She spotted him working with free weights. Ian watched her approach, a mixture of apprehension and pleasure in his expression.

“Ian Stanhope?” she asked.

“That’s me.” He grinned and wiped his sweaty face with his shirt. He was a good looking nineteen-year-old with blond hair that fell into his eyes. That he didn’t push it away bothered Max. Could he even see through the mess?

“I’m Maxine Revere.” She handed him her business card. “I need a minute of your time.”

“Why would a reporter want to talk to me?” he said, a half smile still on his face.

“Do you have a class?”

“Not until noon.”

“Great.”

He looked from her to her card. “You’re from New York.”

“Yes.”

He lost his smile and didn’t move. He tossed his head, moving his clump of overgrown hair to the side. “What do you want to talk to me about?”

“I’m looking into Scott Sheldon’s disappearance, from last October. You were his roommate.”

“I wasn’t on the camping trip.”

“I promise, I won’t take too much of your time.”

He mumbled, “I have class.”

“At noon, right? We’ll be done before then.”

Usually, for Max, the direct approach worked best. She didn’t like playing games or manipulating people into talking to her. But sometimes, she needed a gentle touch. She couldn’t tell if he was more upset or worried, but something was up with him.

She said, “How about if I give you twenty minutes to shower and change, and I’ll meet you at the student union? Coffee, brunch. My treat.” There was always the chance he would bail, but she knew where to find him.

“Is something wrong?”

“Other than your roommate has been missing for six months?”

“I mean, no other reporters have been around here asking about Scott. Like, ever.”

“I specialize in cold cases. Twenty minutes enough time?”

“Yeah—the quad has a food court,” he said. “I’ll meet you there. The student union is just vending machines. Gross stuff, really.”

She walked out, noting that Ian watched her before he disappeared through the locker room doors.

She’d definitely thrown him off, but she didn’t know why. Ian hadn’t been part of the foursome who’d gone camping, so what did he have to worry about? Unless he knew something he hadn’t told the police.

While she waited, Max checked her e-mail and text messages. Ben had sent her a message asking if she’d read his proposal. She didn’t respond. The truth was she
had
read it on the plane—and she still wanted to say no. The proposal was outstanding, and he’d addressed all her concerns, even though she hadn’t told him what they were. He even resolved issues she wouldn’t have thought to question, as if he’d known she’d come up with problems on the fly.

Ultimately, she had to decide if this was what she wanted to do with her life—or at least the next few years. Right now, she was very comfortable. She liked what she did; she liked her freedom.

It didn’t take long before Ian strode purposefully to her table and sat down. He had combed his hair back, so it wasn’t falling in his eyes as much. She smiled, pushed her papers back in a folder, and sipped her coffee. “What can I get you?”

He put a water bottle in front of him. “I can’t eat right after I work out. But thanks.” Ian looked around the quad sheepishly, as if he didn’t want anyone to see him talking with her. “I don’t understand why a reporter is interested in Scott,” he said.

“I specialize in cold cases. My Web site lists the articles and books I’ve written.”

His eyes widened. “You’re writing a book about Scott?”

“Not a book, an article. I spoke to his mother, Adele Sheldon, and she asked me to look into his disappearance.”

“Oh.” He stared down at his hands, not meeting her eyes. “I met Ms. Sheldon when we moved in. Her and Scott’s sister, Ashley. And then when she came to get his things. It was—uncomfortable. I felt bad.”

I felt bad.
“Bad” didn’t cut it. Max had been much closer to Karen than Ian had been to Scott; the pain and rage she’d allowed to simmer were a dark fuel that drove her for the year after Karen disappeared. But Karen was not Scott; Max was not Ian.